Prague will experience an ensemble performance of Scriabin’s piano sonatas
British pianist Jonathan Powell will pay tribute to Alexander Scriabin on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the piano visionary’s birth. November 22 from 7:00 p.m. in the Prague church of St. Vavřineca will be performed by Powell in an ensemble performance of Scriabin’s ten piano sonatas. The following day, the church of St. At the same time, Vavřine belongs to the Spanish piano music of the turn of the century. The works of Albénize, Granados and Falla will feature the famous Spanish duo Carles Lama AND Sofia Cabruja.
“After lectures and master classes by Boris Giltburg and Alfred Brendel in this year’s Academy of Ivan Moravec we invited other important personalities of the piano world to Prague. The British pianist Jonathan Powell returns to us after three years and thus follows up on the successful concerts called Contemporary Classic?, in which he presented important works of the post-war avant-garde. This year we will witness a rare event when the ensemble will perform the complete ten piano sonatas by Alexander Scriabin. The Spanish duo Carles Lama and Sofia Cabruja will perform at the next concert. They will introduce us to works that were created at the same time as Scriabin’s piano sonatas,” complements Jan Bartospianist and director of the Academy Ivan Moravec a Prague music performance.
British pianist Jonathan Powell focuses on music of the 20th and 21st centuries. He performed the Messiaen cycle several times Twenty views of Jesusthe complete works of Iannis Xenakis, complete Klavierstücke Karlheinz Stockhausen, or 24 preludes and fugues by Dmitri Shostakovich. His recording Sorabji’s Sequentia cyclia, consisting of seven CDs, was enthusiastically received by critics and won the prestigious German award Preis der Deutschen Schallplatenkritiken. In 2022, Powell was invited to perform this work by the German pianist Igor Levit at the Heidelberger Frühling festival. Among the latest CD recordings is the premiere recording The first piano concerto Hans Winterberg for Capriccio with the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Johannes Kalitzke. In July 2022, he recorded Xaver Scharwenka’s First Piano Concerto with the Poznań Philharmonic and conductor Łukasz Borowicz for the CPO publishing house.
Powell is invited to solo recitals at festivals in Europe and the United States (Radio France in Montpellier, Raritäten der Klaviermusik am Schloss vor Husum, Vredenburg Muziekcentrum in Utrecht, Musica Sacra in Maastricht or Fundación BBVA in Bilbao). He also performed in the Elbe Philharmonic, the London BBC, Radio France, Radio Netherlands, Radio Deutschland and Czech Radio. He was artist-in-residence at the University of Oxford, where he was invited to give solo recitals, lectures and master classes.
The world-famous husband and wife duo of Carles Lama and Sofia Cabruja is appreciated by the public and critics for their brilliant technique, passion, beauty of sound and elegance. New York critics called them “King of the Four-Handed Piano”. Since 1987, when they started playing together, Lama and Cabruja, thanks to their international career, have performed in famous halls such as Carnegie Hall (New York), Palau de la Música Catalana (Barcelona), Sala Verdi (Milan), Glinka Philharmonic (St. Petersburg ) or Teatro Solís (Montevideo). They regularly perform in world capitals at recitals for four hands or with orchestras. Both were born in Girona (Catalonia, Spain) and showed extraordinary musical talent at an early age. Their repertoire ranges from Bach to the 21st century and includes all major works for four-hand piano together with the most demanding orchestral transcriptions.